The present invention relates generally to wire harnesses and more particularly to a wire harness for a vehicle seat.
Many seats in current vehicles require numerous power, control and other wires to be routed from the vehicle to the seat. The seat may include one or more motors for moving the seat forward and rearward, repositioning the seat at various angles, etc. Vehicle seats may also include a heat source, built in speakers and side air bags which must be activated via the wiring. For all of these and other devices, a single wire harness is typically routed to the seat from the floor of the vehicle beneath the seat. The vehicle seat is mounted onto two parallel seat tracks and movable on the seat tracks from a forward position to a rearward position. Because the wire harness must be able to reach from the vehicle floor to the seat in either extreme position of the seat, the wire harness includes extra slack when the seat is in the middle position. As the seat moves between the extreme positions, the wire harness may be positioned completely or partially across the seat track. The wire harness may then be cut or damaged by the seat as it travels along the track. This is particularly undesirable if the wires activate the side airbag.
United Technologies Automotive has developed a new wire harness in which the wires are encased in molded foam sheath. This is described in more detail in co-pending applications U.S. Ser. No. 08/898,663, filed on Jul. 22, 1997 entitled "FOAMED-IN WIRE HARNESSES." Improvements are more fully disclosed in other co-pending application: "WIRE HARNESS WITH INTEGRAL CONNECTOR" U.S. Ser. No. 08/920,768; "APPARATUS FOR CENTERING WIRE HARNESS IN MOLD" U.S. Ser. No. 08/920,458; "WIRE HARNESS WITH SPLICE LOCATORS" U.S. Ser. No. 08/920,589; "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SECURING WIRE HARNESS TO SURFACE" U.S. Ser. No. 08/920,978; "MULTISHOT MOLDS FOR MANUFACTURING WIRE HARNESS" U.S. Ser. No. 08/920,857; "MOLDS FOR ASSEMBLING & FORMING WIRE HARNESS" U.S. Ser. No. 08/919,946; "FOAM WIRE HARNESS WITH SHAPE MEMORY" U.S. Ser. No. 08/920,570, all filed on Aug. 29, 1997; and "WIRE HARNESS FOAMED TO TRIM PANEL" U.S. Ser. No. 08/927,748 filed on Sep. 11, 1997.